What are Blocked Senders?

Blocked Senders are senders that, for whatever reason, you don't want to receive email from. Messages from these senders will automatically be moved to a folder that the user specifies (the SpamCatcher folder by default).

Blocked Senders can be either email addresses (e.g., joe@yahoo.com) or domains (e.g., yahoo.com). The From: addresses of all new email are compared against the Blocked Senders list. (Note that your Junk Senders and Adult Senders lists are also treated as Blocked Senders.)

Why would I want to maintain a Blocked Senders list?

The Blocked Senders list is useful when you are receiving email from senders you know you don't want email from--an individual sending you harassing messages, commercial email you aren't able to unsubscribe from (in which case the ability to block the entire domain is particularly useful), etc.

How do I add an address or domain to my Blocked Senders list?

There are four ways to add Blocked Senders:

• To block one or more senders from within your Outlook folder: Select all the messages from the senders that you want to block. Click on the Block Message button on your Mailshell Anti-Spam Outlook toolbar, or type in the keyboard shortcut Alt+M then B. The messages you selected will be treated as junk and the senders will automatically be added to your Blocked Senders list.
  
  
• To block a sender while viewing a message: Click on the Block Message button on your Mailshell Anti-Spam Outlook toolbar or type in the keyboard shortcut Alt+M then B. The messages you selected will be treated as junk and the senders will automatically be added to your Blocked Senders list.
  
  
• You may also block messages by clicking on the Mailshell Anti-Spam icon on the Mailshell Anti-Spam Outlook toolbar. On the Mailshell Anti-Spam popup, double-click on Block Options and click on Senders; then select the Add button. Enter the sender into the field provided, then click the OK button. You can specify either an email address (e.g., joe@yahoo.com) or a domain (e.g., yahoo.com). If you specify a domain, any address sending from that domain will be blocked.



• You may also continue to add senders to your Outlook Junk Senders list or Adult Senders list.

Do I need to manually add my Junk Sender's List to Mailshell Anti-Spam Outlook's Blocked Senders?

No. Your Junk Sender's List and Blocked Senders are automatically synchronized.

How do I remove an address or domain to my Blocked Senders list?

To remove a Blocked Senders from your list, click on the Mailshell Anti-Spam icon on your Outlook toolbar. On the Mailshell Anti-Spam popup, double-click on Block Options and click on Senders; then select the address or domain you no longer wish to block and click the Delete button. Mail from this address or domain will no longer automatically be blocked.

Approving an address will also remove the address from your Blocked Senders list.

What happens to my blocked and caught messages?

Messages you manually selected and blocked are moved to your Deleted Items folder. Messages which are automatically blocked are moved to your designated spam folder (the SpamCatcher folder by default).

What are Blocked Countries?

The Block Countries option allows you to block messages from a specific foreign country. For example, if you get lots of spam from China, selecting "China" will result in treating messages coming from China as spam.

What is "Check the sender's country suffix"?

You can block messages whose "From:" addresses are from the top level domains of countries that are blocked. For example, if you chose to block Russia, then messages with "From:" addresses ending in .ru would be blocked.

To disable this feature, click on the Mailshell Anti-Spam icon on the Mailshell Anti-Spam Outlook toolbar. On the Mailshell Anti-Spam popup, under the General Options section, select Countries; then uncheck "Check the sender's country suffix" and click the OK button.

What are Blocked I.P. Addresses?

Mail sent from an I.P. address listed on your Blocked I.P. Addresses list will be treated as spam.

Each message you receive through the Internet travels through one or more machines along the way before it arrives in your Inbox. These machines have different Internet Protocol addresses. If you are receiving spam from a specific I.P. address, you can choose to block all messages from that I.P. address by entering it here. You can enter an individual I.P. address such as 10.2.3.4 or a range of I.P. addresses such as 10.2.3.4-10.2.3.255.

We recommend that you consult your network administrator before making changes to this option.

If you block an I.P. address but expect legitimate mail from the same I.P. address, you will need to explicitly approve those messages to prevent them from being caught as spam.

How do I specify I.P. addresses?

You can use any of the following notations to specify I.P. addresses:

• a single I.P. address, e.g. 127.0.0.1



• the first and last addresses in the netblock, separated by a hyphen, e.g. 127.0.0.1-127.0.0.3
  
  
• using network prefix notation, e.g. 127.0.0.1/29

How do I set a public blacklist?

Public blacklists are filtering services on the Internet that track Internet addresses used by spammers. Enabling Mailshell Anti-Spam to check against one or more of the public blacklists may increase the amount of spam caught. However, the public blacklists are imperfect in that some legitimate senders may also be using the same Internet addresses as the spammers. Another tradeoff is that using many blacklists can slow receipt of your messages.

To set a public blacklist, click on the Mailshell Anti-Spam icon on the Mailshell Anti-Spam Outlook toolbar. On the Mailshell Anti-Spam popup, under the General Options section, check the public blacklist you want to use, and then click the OK button.